Leo’s man spoke beautifully, but Julia was getting oddly sleepy towards the end. She was so tired that words seemed to mean very little to her any longer. Even when her own counsel got up and began to talk, she found it very difficult to brace herself to the necessary attention. She couldn’t understand all the first part of the speech. Apparently, she was being tried, as her counsel put it, “on one of two indictments,” but the prosecution had only “proceeded upon the first.” What curious phraseology these people used! The second indictment had “five counts,” whatever that might mean.
The judge was taking a hand again now. They were back at “accessory before the fact.” That meant, she knew, whether she had known that Leo was going to Saint Clement’s Square that night. Of course, she had not known it. She yawned a little, and found herself wishing she were back even in that dreadful cell, with the two women always looking at her.
Then a phrase in her counsel’s speech caught her ear. Now he was saying the sort of thing she could understand. He was pointing out how absurd it was to imagine, supposing she had wanted Herbert to be murdered, that she would have arranged it to be when she was walking with him, and when she was going to be left alone with him dying on her hands. Well, thought Julia, surely they will believe that? Anybody could see that was sense. And now he was talking about her in much the most truthful way that anybody had talked about her yet. He was describing her as somebody who had always lived in dreams, and in her imagination, in theatres, in books and in her letters. That was true—but she alone knew how true! That is what she had been trying to explain to her lawyer all this time, and this man understood it. There, now he was saying:
“This isn’t an ordinary woman. She is one of those amazing personalities only met with once in a generation. You cannot judge her as an ordinary woman.”
That was what she had always felt about herself. If only these people could understand it! But they looked so dreadfully ordinary themselves as they gazed intently at her counsel. How could they understand? Those two women looked as though they had never had a lover in their lives. Those ten men looked as though they had never been lovers. She supposed they had gone to bed with people, but after all, as she knew from Herbert, that was not the same thing at all. Now he was saying that of course she would not have planned to have Herbert murdered that night, when a short time before she had been writing about only having three years more to decide in.
That was obvious, too. And the suicide pact. He was pointing out that people who made suicide pacts did not kill somebody else; that had to do with killing themselves.
She began to get sleepy again, and kept on yawning. She drank some water; it was maddening to feel so sleepy, when she wanted to listen to every word. She closed her eyes to rest them for a few moments and actually did drift off into a little sleep. Her head fell forward, and she woke up with a jerk.
Her counsel was talking about poison. He was pointing out that no traces of poison were found in Herbert’s body. There was no proof that she had ever had poison. Even the bottle of chlorodyne that she had bought for herself had remained unopened. All she had written, every word of it—and there were many phrases which she should not have written, and which were wicked phrases —had been a great game of make-believe to keep Carr in love with her. That was a very different thing, even playing such a shocking game as this, from taking the first step towards making the game a reality.
That was well put, thought Julia, more awake now. Soon everybody would believe him, they must.
But the judge had looked at the clock. The fourth day had drawn to an end. Julia could have cried aloud. To stop it just when things were going so beautifully! And, worse than that, the judge was speaking. He was speaking to the jury:
“I feel I must offer you, members of the jury, some advice, though, of course, you will not make up your minds until you have heard the whole of the case; but the advice is this: You have heard so much during these four days about this exceptional woman, about this being a story, a fairy story, about this wonderful love, which is, indeed, a very commonplace and ordinary and sordid case of adultery, you may find yourselves in the danger of thinking you are listening to some romance, or watching some play in which you have no part, and from which, when it is over, you can go home and say: ‘That was very interesting, but our lives are not like that, thank goodness.’ What I want you to remember, members of the jury, is that you are not reading a novel, that you are not watching a play, but that you are in a court of justice to try, to the utmost of your ability, a sordid and common-place crime. When you are thinking about it, think about it as just that, and nothing more.”
Everything seemed terribly ordinary the next morning. Julia was more tired than ever. She had only had little snatches of sleep during the night, and she could not recapture the rhythm which her counsel’s speech had held for her until the judge’s remark. But when Sir Oswald first rose on this fifth day, he seemed unperturbed. His deep voice had the same conviction, the same ringing notes. Again he talked about her love for Leo. He read passages from her letters to prove it, and other passages saying that all she really wished was to go away with him—where, she cared not. A job in the South of France. Yes, she remembered that letter; she had written it, but she hadn’t much hope that Leo would get her a job.
“Is it likely,” said Sir Oswald, “that this woman would be writing asking Carr to get her a job in the South of France when all the time she had murder in her heart? Which is likely to be the real part of her letters, the stories about attempts of poisoning—of which there is absolutely no proof—or the real practical parts discussing divorce, discussing ways and means of living, either by another job in England or a job in the South of France, of the truth of which there is plenty of proof? You are men and women of the world … I think you will realise that a practical business woman like Mrs. Starling, whose capabilities have been attested to in this court, would naturally turn her thoughts to continuing elsewhere the same sort of work in which she had been so successful in England; and you see by her letters that this idea had occurred to her not once, but several times, that she is insistent about it. ‘Get me a job, just enough to live on, so that I won’t be a burden to you, and I’ll come anywhere, my heart, wherever I can see most of you, either Scotland or the Mediterranean.’ Is that what a murderer writes? No, that is what a practical woman, who is also in love, writes. A woman who wishes to go on working, a woman who doesn’t wish to burden her lover, but who has no really serious thought in her head except that of making her life anew somewhere else where she can see her lover, and not be troubled by her husband. This is not a court of morals, and it is most important that you should remember this. I am not holding a brief for adultery, as my learned friend has sometimes seemed to think. Probably there is no human being in this court who has not done something which he or she regrets, or, anyway, something which is not in strict accordance with one or other of the Ten Commandments. This woman has broken the Seventh Commandment, but what she does deny is that she has broken the Sixth Commandment. Do you believe it possible that this woman, highly strung, imaginative, as you have seen for yourselves, could have sat placidly with her husband through that theatrical entertainment if she had known all the time that a murderer, who was there by arrangement with her, was awaiting them on their return home? There is no evidence to prove that she had any such idea. The crime took place in a well-lighted Square. She could have made some excuse to take her husband home by a darker way if she had wanted this thing to happen. She could have called in at her mother’s house, and then led him down that little dark lane—Love Lane. But no, they go straight home from the station, from Stamford Brook Station, down the Goldhawk Road, with the lighted trams passing them. They cross the main road, and they go into Saint Clement’s Square, straight on their way home. You have heard witnesses describe how Carr seemed vague and undecided that evening. He himself hadn’t made up his mind what to do. How, in the light of t
his evidence, can you say that there was a plot between these two people? That she knew what was going to happen? That she led her husband to some prearranged spot? Her husband and she simply went home by the most direct route. I suggest to you that Carr’s unhappiness suddenly came to a head, that his indecision suddenly came to an end, that he decided he must see Starling that night, must talk to him, must get him to consent to the divorce which, so far, he had always refused to his wife.”
Oh, all that’s marvellous, thought Julia, and it’s actually true, all of it. A great feeling of rest came over her. She hardly heard her counsel describing the murder, her behaviour at the police court, except that he seemed to think it very noble of her to have tried to protect Leo as, of course, it had been. Why, Leo himself, her counsel was just pointing it out, had maintained steadily that she had nothing to do with it. Of course, everything was going to be all right. What a fool she’d been to be so frightened, to have lived these weeks in torment!
Why, her counsel was finishing now. Wasn’t there anything more that he could say? She supposed not, but she had had that same feeling when she had left the witness-box. He was sitting down now, and that terrible man, the man who was against her, was on his feet.
How odd it seemed—he was addressing hers and Leo’s counsel, and being so polite to them. Perhaps they had persuaded him of the real truth? … but no … he seemed to be changing now … he seemed to be criticising them. He had only just said that at the beginning, to be polite. He was talking now about the case being commonplace and ordinary. He was saying that it must be a case of murder, that Leo had hit several blows when Herbert’s back was turned. Well, of course, that was true! But it had nothing to do with her. And then the terrible leap of the heart that almost choked her … she heard him going on to say that undoubtedly she must have known about Leo coming there that night; and that even if she hadn’t, she had been inciting him, and if, in consequence, Leo had killed Herbert, she was equally guilty.
How could she be equally guilty? She knew, none better, alas! that Leo had never really believed in her picture of herself as a great lover willing to dare everything. He had taunted her that day.
He was sounding so dreadfully fair, this man, that was the worst of it. He kept on saying things like that. “If you think there is no real connection between the letters and the murder, then, of course, there is no case against Mrs. Starling.” Then he would go on to prove that, of course, the letters and the murder were connected. Could nobody stop him, this dreadful man, who went on and on? He was reading bits of her letters now. Why had she written them! Nobody stopped him, he went on and on. And when he had finished it seemed to Julia that although everything he had said—except, of course, the things about Leo—were not true, yet people would be bound to believe him. He had not been quite right even about Leo, because he maintained that Leo believed her letters, and she knew that he hadn’t.
Now the judge was going to speak. She was handed a glass of water, but her hands shook so that she could hardly hold it and swallow. She was not a bit sleepy now. Everything except the jury had been driven out of her consciousness. The judge was explaining things to the jury very carefully, putting both sides to them; but there again he kept on using the words “adultery” and “adulterer.” He was sure that the jury were good citizens, and right-minded persons, and would pay no attention to such nonsense as had been read to them about love from the letters. Why, thought Julia frantically, should the parts about love be nonsense, and the parts that she knew were nonsense be true? The judge was talking now about common sense. There was no moment in all the past years that she could not have told truthfully what was common sense, and what was not. She had always known at the back of her mind what was day-dreaming and what was fact; but these people—how could they tell? It hadn’t been their day-dream.
The judge went on and on. He talked about their love, which he called adultery—had he never gone to bed with anyone but his wife? What about when he was a young man? He talked about the finding of the spanner; he talked about their last tea together; he talked about their letters; he talked about their statements; he talked about everything that she had heard talked of before; and always with, apparently, that terrible fairness, but using words that to Julia seemed to make the thing appear quite different from what, in truth, it had been.
He was talking about Leo’s story now, that idiotic story. She could see herself that that was idiotic—the story that he had thought Herbert was going to attack him. What was the good of saying things like that, when the blows were on the back of Herbert’s head? Ah, now he was mentioning the bearded man, the man who had heard her cry: “Oh, stop! stop! stop!” Why, he was making nothing of it … she had been frantic with fear. She had called for help. She had begged for a doctor, and before any of that, she had screamed and implored Leo to stop it, and the bearded man had said so … and repeated it with great conviction in that box … and here was the judge just dismissing it in a sentence.
The judge cleared his throat and stopped. Was that the end of it? No, they were only adjourning for a short time, and Julia was taken downstairs once again to wait. She was given something to eat and drink, but she wasn’t really aware of any interval. It seemed to her when she was back in the dock as if the judge had been going on steadily, though now he was talking about her more than about Leo. Again she heard it all … that word “accessory”; again she heard about her tea with Leo; that she had known Leo was going to be there; that she wasn’t surprised to see him; that she knew he was going to commit murder; and so she was guilty of the murder, too.
But she hadn’t known … she hadn’t known a thing about it. She had been miserably unhappy … she thought she had lost Leo for good. She had been thinking of nothing else the whole evening. Only now she knew that losing Leo didn’t matter a bit; it wasn’t real.
The afternoon drew on and she sat there listening to extracts out of her letters, those about killing Herbert, which she knew were not true, and those about love which the judge dismissed as silly and vulgar. Now he was talking about her concealing the truth. Of course, she had concealed the truth … her counsel had thought it very noble of her to do it.
Why, it couldn’t be over as quickly as this? He couldn’t be going to say nothing more in her favour? He was telling the jury to retire and consider their verdict. He was rising, and walking with his dignified gait towards the door through which he always disappeared.
Everybody was on their feet in the court-room, with that scraping sound to which she was now so accustomed.
One hour … two hours … three hours … and she was called back; three hours during which she had swung from a certainty that all would be well to a knowledge of utter despair.
“I think it’s all right,” she said to Miss Bendon. “It must be all right, they’ve been so long. If they had thought I was guilty, they would have thought it at once, wouldn’t they?”
She saw a queer look of pity on Miss Bendon’s face, but she refused to acknowledge it even to herself. She went up for the last time into the dock. The foreman, who was so like Mr. Coppinger, was very pale. None of the jury looked in her direction. The man whom she had been told was the clerk of the court was on his feet.
“Members of the jury, have you agreed upon your verdict?”
The man like Mr. Coppinger answered in a low voice: “We have.”
“Do you find the prisoner Leonard Carr guilty or not guilty of the murder of Herbert Starling?”
“Guilty.”
“Do you find the prisoner Julia Starling guilty or not guilty of the murder of Herbert Starling?”
“Guilty,” said the man in a stronger voice.
The clerk of the court went on almost conversationally:
“You say they are severally guilty, and that is the verdict of you all?”
The man nodded.
“Leonard Carr and Julia Starling, you severally stand co
nvicted of murder. Have you, or either of you, anything to say why the court should not give you judgment of death according to the law?”
Leonard threw up his head. It was his last swaggering moment, and he took it.
“The verdict’s wrong,” he said clearly. “Mrs. Starling’s not guilty. I acted in self-defence … Mrs. Starling knew nothing about it.”
Julia was silent save for a whimpering like that of a shot animal. She could not speak. She vaguely heard the judge say to her counsel: “Is there any question of law as to the sentence I have to pronounce?” and the woman sitting beside her leaned forward and whispered to her. It was something about—if she was going to have a baby, could she say so now, and everything would be all right. Julia gave a sharp cry; this was the last irony. If she had not got rid of Herbert’s child, she would have been safe now. … She heard her counsel saying: “No, my lord.” He must have known beforehand then … he must have asked them at the prison!
A clergyman had placed a queer-looking square of black cloth upon the judge’s head. The judge spoke in the same calm, unemotional tone he had used throughout.
“You shall be taken to the place from whence you came, and thence to a place of lawful execution, and there you shall be hanged by the neck until you be dead, and afterwards your body shall be buried in a common grave within the precincts of the prison wherein you were last confined before your execution; and may the Lord have mercy on your soul.”
“Amen,” said the chaplain.
Julia heard her own voice screaming: “But I didn’t know. I didn’t know!” and then the people closed about her and she was taken away.
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